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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal